Hot weather equipment operating tips

“If there’s one thing that makes me cringe, it’s seeing someone drive up in a piece of equipment and shut it off, especially a turbo charged diesel engine,” said Geo-Boy maintenance specialist Perry Severson. “You’re just asking for trouble if you don’t let that hot machine idle down. The Geo-Boy features two Tier III diesel engine options and both need to receive proper care and maintenance.

“When you’ve finished working, idle the Geo-Boy down to about 850 rpm and let it run for about 3 minutes before shutting it off. That gives the turbo charger a chance to slow down and cool down. The turbo charger is cooled by motor oil so you want to give it a chance to let the heat dissipate. Not allowing for that cool down period can shorten the life of any turbo charger or engine. So you can use this tip on your other pieces of equipment as well.”

Added Severson, “After the machine cools, shut down all the accessories too, so when you start the machine back up, the air conditioning is off, the lights are off, etc. Leaving all of those things on creates a voltage fluctuation during start up. Too many things drawing power at the same time. This puts a strain on the machine’s computer, the relays and the whole electrical system. But, if you shut those things down after cool down, you won’t have to worry about that during start up.”